University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Thursday Practice Notebook
November 14, 2014 | Men's Basketball, Featured Writers, Adam Lucas
By Adam Lucas
After a long preseason, Thursday finally brought a typical day-before-a-game practice for the Tar Heels. That meant starting by watching film clips of some of the favorite sets from Friday's opponent, North Carolina Central, and then walking through them on the court under the direction of the coaching staff.
Like Dean Smith, Roy Williams has always preferred to spend more time on what his team does and less on what the opponent does. "The number of days you have between games can dictate a lot of what we do in practice," Marcus Paige said this week. "On Saturday, we won't get a whole lot done in terms of improving, because we'll go over what we did on Friday night and get ready for Sunday. But after that we have a week before Davidson. We'll spend those first three or four days trying to get better as a team and pushing each other, not talking about Davidson. Even once we're in ACC play, if we have a Monday game, there might be a four practice stretch where we could try some new things and push each other. That stuff helps a team get better."
In the zone: One of Thursday's practice periods was devoted to zone offense, which was an occasional thorn for last year's team. It's true that this year's team has more shooters--it was hard not to be optimistic watching Justin Jackson draw the defense and then feed Paige for a more open shot. But the Tar Heels also rebounded the ball very well offensively against the zone. The length and athleticism available throughout the rotation means there could be some easy buckets available off the offensive glass.
Paige impact: It's easy to watch Paige during games and understand why he's a marquee player. The junior shoots the ball well, sees the entire court and is committed to defense.
It's in practice, though, when you really see why coaches fall in love with him. Practice wasn't even 15 minutes old on Thursday before Paige blocked a big man's shot during a fast break drill, then went sprawling out of bounds to save a loose ball, then responded by shouting encouragement to his teammates. The sequence set the tone for practice, and it wasn't too many minutes later when Nate Britt followed Paige's example by flying out of bounds to try and secure a loose ball.
Breakout year: Not only is Isaiah Hicks performing well physically early in the year, he looks significantly more at ease mentally. In one halfcourt offense period, the sophomore went the wrong way early in the possession but eventually ended up scoring. Before the ball had even come through the net, Hicks found Williams and said, "That was my fault right there," then went into a lengthy description of what he had done wrong and how he could have done it correctly.
Notes: Theo Pinson is rarely at a loss for words, even in practice. When Joel Berry II left a floater well short of the rim, only to watch Brice Johnson scoop it up and score, Pinson immediately barked, "Great lob, Joel."...Just like last year, when he made several key late free throws, Britt knocked down both ends of a one-and-one (shooting his free throws lefty) during the practice period devoted to late game situations...It's a busy first weekend. With the 12:30 football game on Saturday, the Tar Heels will be back on the practice court Saturday morning after the Friday night game, and then play again on Sunday night.
